Trump’s DHS Plans to Turn Maryland Warehouse into Massive ICE Detention Camp Spark Legal Fight

In rural Williamsport, Maryland, the Department of Homeland Security has quietly purchased a colossal 800,000-square-foot warehouse for $102 million, with the intention of transforming it into a large-scale ICE detention facility. This industrial behemoth, originally built for storing goods, is now slated to become a holding pen for up to 1,500 detained immigrants each day—a grotesque repurposing that echoes the darkest chapters of mass internment.

The Trump administration’s scheme, as chillingly described by acting ICE director Todd Lyman, treats human beings like “Amazon prime packages,” aiming for volume-based deportations that discard any notion of due process or individual circumstances. The Maryland warehouse is poised to become one of the first in a nationwide network of such detention “warehouses,” cycling tens of thousands of immigrants through the system annually with rapid turnover periods of just three to seven days.

But the plan is shrouded in secrecy. Despite months passing since the purchase, no public documents reveal how DHS intends to convert this low-occupancy warehouse into a detention center, nor how it will operate. Local officials and civil rights organizations have condemned the lack of transparency and the inhumane conditions likely to result.

In response, a broad coalition including local leaders, faith groups, and the ACLU of Maryland has filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to halt DHS’s rushed conversion. They argue that the plan is reckless, secretive, and emblematic of the Trump administration’s authoritarian overreach.

This battle in Maryland is part of a larger fight against the Trump administration’s expansion of a for-profit, dehumanizing immigration detention system that prioritizes mass deportations over human rights and dignity. As the legal challenge moves forward, activists and community members remain determined to expose and stop what they rightly call a “makeshift concentration camp” in their backyard.

We will be watching closely—and holding power accountable every step of the way.